Since Forbes hired me in 1995 to write a legal column, I’ve taken advantage of the great freedom the magazine grants its staff, to pursue stories about everything from books to billionaires. I’ve chased South Africa’s first black billionaire through a Cape Town shopping mall while admirers flocked around him, climbed inside the hidden chamber in the home of an antiquarian arms and armor dealer atop San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, and sipped Chateau Latour with one of Picasso’s grandsons in the Venice art museum of French tycoon François Pinault. I’ve edited the magazine’s Lifestyle section and opinion pieces by the likes of John Bogle and Gordon Bethune. As deputy leadership editor, these days I mostly write about careers and corporate social responsibility. I got my job at Forbes through a brilliant libertarian economist, Susan Lee, whom I used to put on television at MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Before that I covered law and lawyers for journalistic stickler, harsh taskmaster and the best teacher a young reporter could have had, Steven Brill.

Starbucks Announces It Will Give A Free College Education To Thousands Of Workers

This morning at a company meeting in Manhattan, StarbucksStarbucks’ billionaire CEO, Howard Schultz, announced that the company would pay for thousands of workers, including baristas who work just 20 hours a week, to get a bachelor’s degree through Arizona State University’s online program. The initiative, the first of its kind, will allow many of the Seattle-based company’s 135,000 workers to graduate debt-free. Those who already have two years of college credit under their belts, will be entitled to a full tuition reimbursement. Those just starting college will receive subsidies worth an average of $6,500. There will be no requirement that employees who graduate with the program stay on at Starbucks.

In announcing the program, Schultz appeared with ASU President Michael Crow and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Both Schultz and Crow talked about being the first members of their families to earn college degrees. “I grew up less than an hour from here in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn,” said Schultz. “I grew up in federally subsidized housing, my dad never made more than $20,000 and we struggled.”

Schultz went on to say how proud he was that Starbucks has long offered health insurance and stock options to employees who work at least 20 hours a week. He insisted the company was not instituting the new program as a PR stunt. “I couldn’t care less about marketing,” he said. “This is not about PR. This is about the future of our company doing what’s right for our people and also, sending a message to the country that we can’t build a great company and we can’t build a great enduring country if we’re constantly leaving people behind.”

Echoing Schultz’s comments, Crow shared that he was in the first generation of his family to get a college degree, and he lamented the fact that college has become less accessible to students from low-income backgrounds. “If you come from a family of the upper quartile of family income, you’ll have an 80% chance of attaining a college degree,” he said. “The bottom 25% of family incomes, you have a 9% chance of getting a college degree.” The two did not discuss whether would-be students would have to submit SAT scores or other admissions materials to enroll in the program.

ASU’s online program is one of the largest in the country, with 11,000 currently enrolled, including 6,700 undergraduates. The program is a profitable one for the university because of the lack of infrastructure requirements and the ease with which professors can teach more students. The tuition price for online courses is approximately $500 per credit hour. Twelve credit hours are considered full time and it takes 120 credits to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Starbucks employees will be able to enroll in the program starting August 15, with online classes starting on October 15.

In an interview with The New York Times, Schultz said that while he knows the program could prompt employees who get degrees to leave Starbucks for better-paying jobs, the experience “would be accreted to our brand, our reputation and our business. . . I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people.”

At the meeting, Secretary Duncan said he believed that Schultz is “focused on not just making a profit, but on helping the country and helping the world do better.”

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